Landorus-I Suspect Discussion

Discuss the possibility of Landorus-I being banned from the ORAS OU tier. Use this thread to discuss Landorus-I's effect on the metagame. Talk about the different sets it can use, good partners and potential checks/counters. State your opinion on whether you think Landorus-I should be banned or if it should stay in the ORAS OU tier but make sure your posts are backed up by experience and knowledge. Anyone who makes a post based on theorymon risks being infracted.

Important notes:

Stay on topic.

Post intelligently.

Make meaningful posts. If your post doesn't contain any content, it is prone to being deleted. For example, posts that agree/don't agree with a certain point without any justification or explanation.

Discuss the possibility of Landorus-I being banned from the ORAS OU tier.

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Landorus-i has been a very interesting force in the OU metagame since it's reintroduction to the tier in XY. I remember many players demanding a Lando-I ban many months ago and the idea was dismissed as somewhat legit, but hardly enough to warrant a suspect. Now we have an OU metagame that looks very different, plagued by match-up woes, restricted team-building and a bias towards balance and bulky offensive builds. Additionally, with enthusiasm for Landorus-T dying down for several reasons, many players now have the opportunity to run Landorus and make it more potent in the metagame than before. Taking into consideration the tier we have now as opposed to the OU of the past, this is where Landorus-I comes into discussion.

Landorus-i makes use of it's ability Sheer Force to function as a powerful wallbreaker, or with a Rock Polish set, effective late-game cleaner. While Landorus-i is generally regarded as a special attacker, it's great physical movepool combined with its high attack stat un-invested lets it make use of moves like Rock Slide and Knock Off to smack it's potential checks and counters. Landorus can tailor it's moveset much like many other offensive threats in the metagame, opting to beat certain checks/counters and have a more favorable match-up versus one playstyle or another depending on what the player wants.

In this metagame, it is fair to say that Landorus is predictable in certain ways. Landorus will be running a 252/252 spread, with either a Modest, Timid or Naive nature depending on whether the user packs Rock Polish or Calm Mind/All-Out-Attacker. Modest Lando-I hits even harder than usual, but gets outsped by common threats such as ZardY/(X), Manaphy, Lead SD Chomp, Mega Garde/Medicham, CB Victini, etc. On the flip side, a Timid nature makes it easier to check with purely special walls like Slowking, Chansey, Mew, Latias and others, and a Naive nature weakens its poor bulk even further and makes it miss out on potential OHKOs and 2HKOs that it relies on as a result of its aforementioned poor defensive capabilities. Landorus will always be running Earth Power and likely Sludge Wave in this metagame, favoring Sludge Wave over Psychic as it's reliable secondary STAB. It will also always be running Life Orb, and should it be knocked off by special walls like Mew that otherwise handle it, it can feel like dead-weight against certain builds.

In other ways, Landorus-i can prove far less predictable. It has a legitimate and equal chance of running Hidden Power Ice, Knock Off, Focus Blast, Rock Polish, Calm Mind, Rock Slide and even Substitute as it's coverage + set-up moves. This makes it very difficult to determine whether Landorus will be sweeping you late game with Rock Polish, and if it gets to +2 speed, it becomes difficult to revenge kill without priority (though most priority does handle it after a bit of chip damage). Calm Mind sets are admittedly less popular than RP and AoA sets given the presence of new powerful stallbreakers in ORAS, but nonetheless poses a threat to bulky offensive and passive builds should it be running it.

With all that out of the way, I am leaning towards banning Landorus from OU. To be fair I'm pretty 60/40 on the decision, and I'm unsure how I would vote if it came down to that (unlikely), but right now this is where I stand. What breaks Landorus for me now compared to past generations and earlier in the metagame is the following: Knock Off.

In my experience running Landorus, it actually has not been it's special attacking power that's been problematic; it's been Knock Off. IMO, almost every Landorus set should be running Knock Off as it destroys all of Landorus' common checks in the OU metagame or hinders their effectiveness substantially. Chansey, Mew, [email protected] and Slowking are all good checks for Landorus, but all lose to Knock off or lose eviolite. Without those 4 aforementioned pokemon, players are left with Cresselia and AV Tornadus-T as the only true OU-viable Landorus-i counters (and Cress does legitimately beat every possible variant of Landorus ... or at least the one I use, anyway). Cress is only viable on Stall and some bulky offensive builds. Tornadus-T is admittedly an excellent pokemon in this metagame for many playstyles, but doesn't want to be losing it's AV to Knock Off, can't OHKO it back and has to rely on low accuracy moves to do much back. Hyper Offensive builds can smack it with really powerful priority / scarfers, but the Rock Polish set poses a huge threat to the entire archetype if it gets to +2. Balance really doesn't carry much to legitimately tank Landorus' hits, and although it certainly can choose to run things that check Landorus, it's really a lot harder to play around than things like Genesect, Metagross and other coverage dependent sweepers given how hard it hits if you guess wrong.

um can we stop doing stupid suspects metagross wasn't broken as is your just doing suspects over pointless things, honestly no just no.

reasons.

it's strongish, but lacks alot more ohks in gen 6 than it did gen 5 which is why it was threating, it's not super bulky

talon likes killing it and can switch in on it mostly, ok rocksldie wave and chic, he doesn't but predictions works both ways if u take a risk and lose a prediction so be it

it need to rp to out speed things, means it loses a move slot, i mean it also could rock plish gen 5 but it kinda needs to while in gen 5 it had enough speed to get away with not rock polishing

banning this would be 100000% stuipd

on a side note i'll gladly suspect scop+esp complex ban that atleast has merit, of forcing peopel to taunt the scop

LONG STORY: WE need strong pokemon in a tier, we have to stop just banning something because it limits our team building somewhat. It opens the flood gates, look what happend bw2, they banned all the s-tier stuff, so everything left became s-tier like levels. Which made the tier match up dependant. The more things you ban like metagross(which omg wasn't even that horribly much stronger) the more the match ups matter and the less 'skill' becomes invloved. If you keep losing to a certain pokemon l2check it.

Honestly if we keep this up, this metagame is and will became 70% match-up dependant like bw2 was. WE need stronger pokemon, we need centralising pokemon to have a metagame, Not a pokemon that is insta-lol win mode but 2-4 pokemon that force people to prepair for and that a team should be thinking of running 1 of these pokemon

um can we stop doing stupid suspects metagross wasn't broken as is your just doing suspects over pointless things, honestly no just no.

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um can we post reasoning instead of mindlessly calling things stupid, honestly no just no.

reasons.

it's strongish, but lacks alot more ohks in gen 6 than it did gen 5 which is why it was threating, it's not super bulky

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yea but it still 2hkos almost everything and can run a plethora of viable moves, which it does often, and has this extra element of movepool unpredictability that, in conjunction with its power and speed, is a bit too much, in my opinion, for the current metagame.

talon likes killing it and can switch in on it mostly, ok rocksldie wave and chic, he doesn't but predictions works both ways if u take a risk and lose a prediction so be it

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cb talon isn't even OHKOing it and I don't know what having these moves has to do with prediction when sometimes they're either very easy to spam or, when in a 1v1 situation, very obvious to use, making prediction only slightly applicable in the former of these two scenarios and not at all applicable in the latter of these two. Talon can be seen as a check to Landorus at times, yes, but it is far from a counter and it shouldn't been seen as a reliable check, either, due to the SR weakness and lack of bulk, vulnerability to moves like rock slide, and inability to OHKO Lando (for reference on the calc, see the spoiler tag).

it need to rp to out speed things, means it loses a move slot, i mean it also could rock plish gen 5 but it kinda needs to while in gen 5 it had enough speed to get away with not rock polishing

banning this would be 100000% stuipd

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what. it has base 101 speed, rp is just a bit of a boost to totally destroy offensive teams late game, but it has sufficient speed regardless.

on a side note i'll gladly suspect scop+esp complex ban that atleast has merit, of forcing peopel to taunt the scop

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try the potential suspects discussion g.

LONG STORY: WE need strong pokemon in a tier, we have to stop just banning something because it limits our team building somewhat. It opens the flood gates, look what happend bw2, they banned all the s-tier stuff, so everything left became s-tier like levels. Which made the tier match up dependant. The more things you ban like metagross(which omg wasn't even that horribly much stronger) the more the match ups matter and the less 'skill' becomes invloved. If you keep losing to a certain pokemon l2check it.

Honestly if we keep this up, this metagame is and will became 70% match-up dependant like bw2 was. WE need stronger pokemon, we need centralising pokemon to have a metagame, Not a pokemon that is insta-lol win mode but 2-4 pokemon that force people to prepair for and that a team should be thinking of running 1 of these pokemon

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before you throw out random %s and express your discontent feeling towards the bw2 metagame and state how banning this will lead to a similar situation, how about you actually formulate a solid anti-ban argument in the first place as the earlier portion of your post is certainly lacking in various areas.

Although it's not the fastest nor the most powerful mon in the tier, I definitely believe that Landorus should be banned.

The combination of its movepool, power, and decent base speed allows it to dictate the game against team archetypes such as stall and balance. With Rock Polish, it can also be effective against offense. All of these characteristics allow Landorus to be a threatening presence in the OU Metagame.

Many people point out that because Landorus only has 4 moves to work with, it can easily be played around and neutralized. However, I disagree with this because you don't just pick 4 moves randomly - you pick them based on the dynamic of your team. For example, if you have Tyranitar or Bisharp on your team simply to trap Latios/Latias, you obviously don't need to put Knock Off on Landorus. This works the other way as well; if you're weak to Fairy-types in general, use Sludge Wave etc.

Further augmenting Landorus' effectiveness in the OU Metagame, the checks to it are few and rare. Many of these checks can be dealt with fluctuations to Landorus' moveset. Again, to fully abuse Landorus' potential, you really have to think logically about its moveset and not just say it's not worth suspecting because it has 10+ viable moves to use but can only use 4.

With all of that said, I think that Landorus' presence in OU restricts teambuilding to a larger degree than any other mon in the tier due to its great movepool, heavy-hitting attacks, and lack of consistent checks in the tier.

Although it's not the fastest nor the most powerful mon in the tier, I definitely believe that Landorus should be banned.

The combination of its movepool, power, and decent base speed allows it to dictate the game against team archetypes such as stall and balance. With Rock Polish, it can also be effective against offense. All of these characteristics allow Landorus to be a threatening presence in the OU Metagame.

Many people point out that because Landorus only has 4 moves to work with, it can easily be played around and neutralized. However, I disagree with this because you don't just pick 4 moves randomly - you pick them based on the dynamic of your team. For example, if you have Tyranitar or Bisharp on your team simply to trap Latios/Latias, you obviously don't need to put Knock Off on Landorus. This works the other way as well; if you're weak to Fairy-types in general, use Sludge Wave etc.

Further augmenting Landorus' effectiveness in the OU Metagame, the checks to it are few and rare. Many of these checks can be dealt with fluctuations to Landorus' moveset. Again, to fully abuse Landorus' potential, you really have to think logically about its moveset and not just say it's not worth suspecting because it has 10+ viable moves to use but can only use 4.

With all of that said, I think that Landorus' presence in OU restricts teambuilding to a larger degree than any other mon in the tier due to its great movepool, heavy-hitting attacks, and lack of consistent checks in the tier.

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We're on the same side here, but just as a brief response to your point about move choices, a lot of offensive pokemon have the capability to run what their team needs and have support from the other 5 pokemon. I don't think those are qualities that indicate "brokenness", because under that logic we'd need dozens more suspect tests. My point about Knock Off wasn't that it needed to run it, but rather that a common trait of "broken" sweepers e.g. Mega Lucario would be their capability to beat teams alone, normally with one standard moveset (CC, ES, SD, Crunch/IP in MLuc's case), largely by themselves after one or even no boosts. I believe the latter is true of Landorus, where Knock Off should be run as it's most self-sufficient option on it's best, most potentially broken set.

We're on the same side here, but just as a brief response to your point about move choices, a lot of offensive pokemon have the capability to run what their team needs and have support from the other 5 pokemon. I don't think those are qualities that indicate "brokenness", because under that logic we'd need dozens more suspect tests. My point about Knock Off wasn't that it needed to run it, but rather that a common trait of "broken" sweepers e.g. Mega Lucario would be their capability to beat teams alone, normally with one standard moveset (CC, ES, SD, Crunch/IP in MLuc's case), largely by themselves after one or even no boosts. I believe the latter is true of Landorus, where Knock Off should be run as it's most self-sufficient option on it's best, most potentially broken set.

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I'm not saying that the support from its team is what makes it broken. I'm saying that the argument of "4MSS" for not banning it is stupid because you do just fine without having more than 4 moves.

Ok now I don't normally post on these kind of things due to the fact that most of the choices so far have had legitimate reason, but this suspect has caught me off guard. I'm amazed players have not found a way to deal with Lando-I. Yes he can run rock polish sets and calm mind but everyone is forgetting how many Pokemon can run ice shard. If he is that big of a deal then it's important to have Ice shard in your team. People should be running shard anyways due to the common Lando-T. Yeah it won't 1hko unless rocks is up but thats where fake out or brave bird comes in to finish.

It seems like Ou tier is trying to be made a tier where everything 1hko's another thing. It's kind of irritating that anything with a bit of a problem to the tier is being suspected. M-Metagross wasn't even that bad. Lando is one of those pokemon where you need a sash and priority move to deal with or someone who can take the initial hit and give him a lot of damage then revenge kill with a priority move. Fake out, Aqua jet, Ice shard, Gale wings, Feint, Sucker punch, you name it. I doubt anyone will be running a defensive or special defensive Lando-I and if they are then that makes it easier to take damage since they swapped an offensive lando with bulk lowering it's damage output and with the right switch in like Cresselia you can take the hit and blizzard the hell out of them to deal a 1hko to a max invested spc defensive nature which I doubt anyone will be running. And if they are un invested then that leaves ice beam a great option to revenge kill with. That doesn't just go for Cresselia either who only has a max spc att of 273. There are a lot of things that can carry ice beam.

I do not feel that Lando-I is as much of a threat as some of the previous bans from Ou, especially Greninja, due to the sole fact of it's weakness to Ice. Carrying focus blast is risky due to the accuracy and Tyranitar can take a focus blast with Assault vest and Sandstorm active and deal a blizzard or ice beam back to 1 hko uninvested Lando-I.

As you can see it can already deal a huge amount of damage to max ev Lando.

These are just a few of the ways to hit Lando-I. I won't name every single way I can think of because that would be a long post and it should be the players responsibility to prepare for these kind of things. I feel that players could carry a strategy against it with Moderate difficulty. You also have to understand that when something gets banned another thing is bound to be a threat because you took away a viable counter. The same thing will happen if Lando-I gets banned.

Bulky enough that you need to revenge kill it with CB Talonflame, Aqua Jet, or Ice Shard

I do personally think it was a bigger problem before Feraligatr got Sheer Force, but nothing that revenge kills it can safely switch in. I think Landorus is as destructive as Greninja, only slower, but harder to revenge killer.

Ok now I don't normally post on these kind of things due to the fact that most of the choices so far have had legitimate reason, but this suspect has caught me off guard. I'm amazed players have not found a way to deal with Lando-I. Yes he can run rock polish sets and calm mind but everyone is forgetting how many Pokemon can run ice shard. If he is that big of a deal then it's important to have Ice shard in your team. People should be running shard anyways due to the common Lando-T. Yeah it won't 1hko unless rocks is up but thats where fake out or brave bird comes in to finish.

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The fact that you are saying "Ice Shard is important to have on your team" suggests that Landorus-I is restrictive on teambuilding.

It seems like Ou tier is trying to be made a tier where everything 1hko's another thing. It's kind of irritating that anything with a bit of a problem to the tier is being suspected. M-Metagross wasn't even that bad. Lando is one of those pokemon where you need a sash and priority move to deal with or someone who can take the initial hit and give him a lot of damage then revenge kill with a priority move. Fake out, Aqua jet, Ice shard, Gale wings, Feint, Sucker punch, you name it.

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How many things can switch into Landorus in order to execute that plan? What if Landorus switches out on the "revenge-killing priority move"? In reality, it's not as straightforward as you say it is. Just because you have Ice Shard on a mon doesn't mean all of your problems with Landorus are gone.

I doubt anyone will be running a defensive or special defensive Lando-I and if they are then that makes it easier to take damage since they swapped an offensive lando with bulk lowering it's damage output and with the right switch in like Cresselia you can take the hit and blizzard the hell out of them to deal a 1hko to a max invested spc defensive nature which I doubt anyone will be running. And if they are un invested then that leaves ice beam a great option to revenge kill with. That doesn't just go for Cresselia either who only has a max spc att of 273. There are a lot of things that can carry ice beam.

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There are a lot of things that can carry Close Combat. That means that Arceus-Normal should be unbanned right?

I do not feel that Lando-I is as much of a threat as some of the previous bans from Ou, especially Greninja, due to the sole fact of it's weakness to Ice. Carrying focus blast is risky due to the accuracy and Tyranitar can take a focus blast with Assault vest and Sandstorm active and deal a blizzard or ice beam back to 1 hko uninvested Lando-I.

As you can see it can already deal a huge amount of damage to max ev Lando.

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I don't get what you're saying here. Even fully invested AssVest T-Tar (don't know why anyone would want to run that) isn't a consistent check to Landorus. Tyranitar takes at least 36-37% from Earth Power on switch in and then dies to Focus Blast.

These are just a few of the ways to hit Lando-I. I won't name every single way I can think of because that would be a long post and it should be the players responsibility to prepare for these kind of things. I feel that players could carry a strategy against it with Moderate difficulty. You also have to understand that when something gets banned another thing is bound to be a threat because you took away a viable counter. The same thing will happen if Lando-I gets banned.

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Arguing that something else would be broken as a result of a ban is pretty fallacious. If that were a good reason to keep something in a tier, then we would never ban anything.

The fact that you are saying "Ice Shard is important to have on your team" suggests that Landorus-I is restrictive on teambuilding.

How many things can switch-in to Landorus in order to execute that plan? What if Landorus switches out on the "revenge-killing priority move? In reality, it's not as straightforward as you say it is. Just because you have Ice Shard on a mon doesn't mean all of your problems with Landorus are gone.

There are a lot of things that can carry Close Combat. That means that Arceus-Normal should be unbanned right?

I don't get what you're saying here. Even fully invested AssVest T-Tar (don't know why anyone would want to run that) isn't a consistent check to Landorus. Tyranitar takes at least 36-37% from Earth Power on switch in and then dies to Focus Blast.

Arguing that something else would be broken as a result of a ban is pretty fallacious. If that's a good reason to keep something in a tier, then we would never ban anything.

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It's not really restricted because of Ice shard. There are plenty of mons that can bypass his offensive and bulk. Namely Sash Scolipede passes to a bulkier mon who can take the hit.. If you want to get technical hell you can even baton to Tyranitar and run teams. Focus blast is 70 accuracy so relying on that to kill your counters is kind of crazy. If your a good player then you know as soon as you switch in with the counter then he will switch so that leaves it up to prediction kill on the pokemon Lando switched for. I didn't say Ice shard will cure problems but scaring lando with an ice shard is a good move and even if he doesn't switch you can still run the ice shard+priority combo. And a lot of people run Spc. Def Tyrant due to focus blast, surf, hydro pump etc. I also don't understand where the close combat part came from.

And the earth power focus blast combo on Tyrant is not certain. It boils down to the players prediction skills really.. If you know he is going to use Earth power switch into cresselia or Rotom-W. If you know hes going to focus blast, switch into cresselia, Rotom-w, Quagsire, and other bulks. I would honestly keep Tyrant out and wait for focus blast to miss.If you wanted to you could use Mega Tyranitar which can take 3 hits from Lando before Ko-ing and if he calm minds thats fine send in quagsire or a hard hitter while he is stat boosting because I don't foresee calm mind and rock polish on the same set.. I don't want to name every single way to take out Lando because that would be redundant, but there are effective ways of dealing with him and he is not so problematic as to be banned because of a couple of unpredictable sets. Anyone who plays a lot would be able to come up with an effective strategy. I'm definitely sure you can think of some ways. I could understand if there were only a few ways to deal with him but I've named quite a few so far just responding to this topic.

Landorus's greatest weakness is that he can only use 4 moves at a time, out of a long list of good coverage.
And the fact that this isn't a weakness, is really not true. The argument that you choose the 4 moves to fit your team can apply to any Offensive Pokemon, really. 4mss especially applies to Landorus-I. You really can't afford to run Knock Off, if you are running Rock Polish or Calm Mind. If you want to go with just a regular attacker, Knock Off/Focus Blast/Psychic/Earth Power would be common. However, this still leaves you with a weakness. The reply that you choose the 4moves that best fit your team isn't really valid.
Also, if you are a Physical Ice Type, you will always carry Ice Shard as a priority move. It's a STAB priority move that can hit Dragon-types and Ground/Flying types. If you are running a Ice Type, and its Physical, it would be best to run Ice Shard.
Common Moves For Special Landorus w/ Max EVs in Sp. A and Speed, with either a Modest, Naive, or Timid Nature:
- Earth Power
- Psychic
- Sludge Wave
- HP Ice
- Rock Slide
- Focus Blast
- Rock Polish
- Calm Mind
- Knock OffMamoswine is a great check. Although it can't switch in onto Focus Blast. it OHKOs with Ice Shard, a priority move. Although Focus Sash is not an argument, it still manages to get rid of any Landorus with it's priority move, Ice Shard.252+ Atk Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 316-376 (99 - 117.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 374-442 (117.2 - 138.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Mamoswine: 681-803 (189.6 - 223.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

In total, Landorus-I should not be banned from the ORAS OU tier as I have gone through numerous checks + counters that are viable in OU. As many against the ban have said, "it's more threatening on paper than it is in battle".

I disagree with 4MSS being cast aside in this debate. When it comes down to it, this is a game without perfect information, and you have to work with what you have to make logical guesses about opponents' sets all the time. Landorus-I is certainly strong because it can threaten many mons with various moves. But, it also cannot threaten everything at once. Any given set has counters. Many share common checks. Universally, it isn't at a particularly threatening speed tier, and many things can revenge kill it with or without priority. Saying that Rock Polish fixes this is again ignores its limitations and focuses only on its max potential. Max potential should certainly be a figure of the debate. But it shouldn't be the only factor. Bypassing the importance of 4MSS downplays the importance of and set-reading.

Without Sludge Wave, many Fairies can switch in and defeat it. Without Psychic, Gengar or Gliscor give it trouble. Without Focus Blast, Skarmory counters. Without Rock Slide, Tornadus-T, Charizard-Y, and other Flying types trump it. Some of these are also dealt with by HP [Ice] or Knock Off, but using those moves also comes with limitations. If you're fitting Calm Mind or Rock Polish onto the set, you're limiting your offensive options further. In some cases, guessing the set wrong may cost you a mon, but the same is true with any overprediction or misprediction. It isn't a perfect information game, but it isn't impossible to work within what you do know. If you are only counting Landorus' true counter(s) as limitations on its ability, then of course it is going to be banned. In practice, there is a lot more to consider though.

I am undecided about whether or not it should be banned, but I would like to hear arguments focused on Landorus' weaknesses as well as its strengths.

I would agree with Fiery Espeon on this. It may be true that Landorus-I has a great movepool, however there are many pokemon that can handle Landorus. Like Fiery just alluded to, Mamoswine destroys Landorus with priority ice shard. Starmie, Vaporeon, calm mind Suicune, and even the rare Avalugg will make short work of the behemoth. Keldeo outspeeds and decimates with scald and icy wind. In addition, specs Latios with either draco meteor or ice beam is an excellent way to deal with Landorus-I. I would argue that modest assault vest Clawitzer would also have no problem taking it down with either water pulse or ice beam. The point I'm trying to make is that Landorus-I is not as difficult to handle that a ban should be warranted.

Alright I'd like to address the matter of Four Move Slot Syndrome (aka 4MSS).

While it can be argued that Landorus does suffer from 4MSS, that doesn't necessarily mean it's less of a threat, nor does it detract from pro-ban arguments. On the contrary, it actually fuels the fire for pro-ban arguments as it shows the unpredictability of Landorus in OU. It is able to run a plethora of viable move slot combinations (with Earth Power being the lone staple) that makes it nearly impossible to counter consistently while it still covers a majority of the metagame with every set and can hand pick its own counters based on its team, making it very easy to fit into teams and especially abusable on offense and bulky-offensive teams. Some combinations of moves I've seen Lando run are:

You get the point yet? I hope so. On other fronts, I'm going to have to echo @Raducan for the most part.

Landorus has above average speed (base 101) which allows it to not easily get "played around" by any archetype of team unless they have something like Talonflame or Mega Aerodactyl, which are hardly even safe to switch in and be used to occasionally check Landorus, but they certainly cannot counter or consistently check it (especially because they can't roost vs it unless they want to risk the "EP on the roost mindgame" and coverage moves can do a lot of damage to each of these pokemon - potentially 2hko both depending on their spreads). Additionally, this speed lets it threaten entire balance teams who at most have a fast offensive pokemon like Keldeo and a scarfer to outpace it, generally, if even that.

Landorus has top notch power with base 115 SAtk in conjunction with Sheer Force and the boost from LO (which is a given because LO and SF go so well together). It's able to 2hko upwards of ninety percent of the metagame with its STAB and common coverage on the most common sets I'd say and if that isn't enough, STAB Earth Power is able to 2hko any non-Chansey/Blissey (with a few exceptions) if it's hitting neutrally or super effectively.

Landorus has the natural bulk to not be easily revenge killed by neutral attacks and it doesn't have the worst defensive typing (ok, it's 4x weak to ice, but Mamoswine is so uncommon that it has dropped UU here on PO and it's not much more common otherwise, either, and nothing else has Ice Shard, so you can't label Landorus as priority weak and while it is still weak to Ice and Water, it's not too bad otherwise). Basically, it's not as frail as some other offensive threats who fit the glass-cannon role are and that's worth noting.

Overall, Landorus is an unhealthy presence in OU on various fronts and due to a general lack of counters, it should be banned from ORAS OU.

Ok now I don't normally post on these kind of things due to the fact that most of the choices so far have had legitimate reason, but this suspect has caught me off guard. I'm amazed players have not found a way to deal with Lando-I. Yes he can run rock polish sets and calm mind but everyone is forgetting how many Pokemon can run ice shard. If he is that big of a deal then it's important to have Ice shard in your team. People should be running shard anyways due to the common Lando-T. Yeah it won't 1hko unless rocks is up but thats where fake out or brave bird comes in to finish.

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Friend.You seem to be looking at building solely through an offensive view here,but lets view it from a balance/stall standpoint.Yes,many pokemon can run ice shard and many viables one too.But ask yourself,is it possible for every team out there to run ice shard?Or fake out?
And sorry if I come off as rude here (Don't care lol.Also sorry if I got an ego) - Your contradict yourself here.Lando-I cannot be Ohko'ed by ice shard itself unless SR damage and that's merely stating most ice shard users cannot switch into it without risking being KO'ed by the attack that follows,let alone be of any use in the remaining battle after a failed KO.
Additionally,I wouldn't encourage a mon to stay OU if it requires me to run Ice Shard on every one of my teams solely for the sake of revenge killing it.That's merely too much stress on teambuilding.

I do not feel that Lando-I is as much of a threat as some of the previous bans from Ou, especially Greninja, due to the sole fact of it's weakness to Ice. Carrying focus blast is risky due to the accuracy and Tyranitar can take a focus blast with Assault vest and Sandstorm active and deal a blizzard or ice beam back to 1 hko uninvested Lando-I.

As you can see it can already deal a huge amount of damage to max ev Lando.

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Tyranitar doesn't survive the following Earth power.Tyranitar is the last thing you'd want to check Lando-I with unless you got a free switchin,and most cases of switching Tyranitar into a Lando-I results in the Landorus walking away a perfect victory (Perfect : Landorus at max health,Tyranitar = x_x from following attack.)
Furthermore your calcs dont really secure a OHKO on Landorus,so idk how Tyranitar even matters to this.

These are just a few of the ways to hit Lando-I. I won't name every single way I can think of because that would be a long post and it should be the players responsibility to prepare for these kind of things. I feel that players could carry a strategy against it with Moderate difficulty. You also have to understand that when something gets banned another thing is bound to be a threat because you took away a viable counter. The same thing will happen if Lando-I gets banned.

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Dude,no!It sure is the players responsibility to prepare for such things,but when you barely got mons that can safely switch into it and/or are crippled easy by a knock off carrying set (The one that helps Lando-I get over most of it's supposedly counters),you lose the will to build,merely because it becomes ever so strenous.I've been playing OU since the fourth generation,tbh and I really don't feel the need to play a tier where you gotta run Ice Shard,Fake out or BB mandatory on a team solely in order to revenge a broken mon.Countering Lando-I isnt really a job done with moderate difficulty but one that's very strenous on the person building.If it were then we wouldn't be having this suspect discussion in the first place.
As for the prediction of broken mons arising due to the banning of Lando-I,keeping one broken mon in a tier to check another broken mon isn't really an answer mate.

Coming to my 2 cents now.
The main reason I'd like to see Lando banned from OU is due to a lack of safe switchins to it and the fact that it puts enormous pressure on team building,even after which it continues to pose to be a significant threat to most teams,and most attempts at taking it out comes down to revenge killing (In most cases where the revenge killer cannot switch into it safely) -
A few calcs to demonstrate some of it's supposedly checks mentioned here -

Safe switch ins to it however exist,though are few and most of them not easily applicable to most teams and/or restricted to very specific team types.The ones I can think off the top of my head would be Skarmory,Standard Smogon bulky Latias,Slowking and Bronzong.
But as mentioned Slowking and Bronzong take a huge chunk from Knock off and the former takes a larger chunk of damage from Earth Power alone,than regenerator heals.

Not to mention the above are mons that barely fit in on most teams,bar Latias.
Skarm is 2hko'ed by focus blast,which is the move on the standard Smogon set,so am guessing ppl are running it.
Smogon's bulky Latias set,though takes a significant amount of damage from Knock off,can switch into most of Landorus's attacks (And even knock off with a bit of luck

It's worth noting that a 'mere' 4% usage means nothing in the broken-ness argument. IIRC, Gothorita got banned from Gen 5 NU, and it was at something like 0.2% usage.

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Yeah, usage statistics have little value in suspects discussions, other than the centralization arguement maybe. I know some people like to use the statistic, so I thought I'd post it. I'll clarify that it's not an arguement, thanks.

This is from our ranked stats, aka the only stats that matter when seriously discussing the tier. The ones that are only pulled from people with 1100+ ranking on the ladder and not every 10 year old kid who may come on here.

It's been said time and time again that you should only use ranked stats for several reasons; you didn't add anything of value to the discussion. The percentage of moves used also barely matter as in higher levels of play different moves are splashed around according to what your team needs for the pokemon. Assuming said pokemon actually has a movepool. Which Landorus does.

Landorus has above average speed (base 101) which allows it to not easily get "played around" by any archetype of team unless they have something like Talonflame or Mega Aerodactyl, which are hardly even safe to switch in and be used to occasionally check Landorus, but they certainly cannot counter or consistently check it (especially because they can't roost vs it unless they want to risk the "EP on the roost mindgame" and coverage moves can do a lot of damage to each of these pokemon - potentially 2hko both depending on their spreads). Additionally, this speed lets it threaten entire balance teams who at most have a fast offensive pokemon like Keldeo and a scarfer to outpace it, generally, if even that.

Landorus has top notch power with base 115 SAtk in conjunction with Sheer Force and the boost from LO (which is a given because LO and SF go so well together). It's able to 2hko upwards of ninety percent of the metagame with its STAB and common coverage on the most common sets I'd say and if that isn't enough, STAB Earth Power is able to 2hko any non-Chansey/Blissey (with a few exceptions) if it's hitting neutrally or super effectively.

Landorus has the natural bulk to not be easily revenge killed by neutral attacks and it doesn't have the worst defensive typing (ok, it's 4x weak to ice, but Mamoswine is so uncommon that it has dropped UU here on PO and it's not much more common otherwise, either, and nothing else has Ice Shard, so you can't label Landorus as priority weak and while it is still weak to Ice and Water, it's not too bad otherwise). Basically, it's not as frail as some other offensive threats who fit the glass-cannon role are and that's worth noting.

Overall, Landorus is an unhealthy presence in OU on various fronts and due to a general lack of counters, it should be banned from ORAS OU.

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With all due respect, firstly, I'm going to touch upon the part where you said "Mamoswine is so uncommon that it has dropped UU here on PO and it's not much more common otherwise".

If usage indeed doesn't matter (as many other have pointed out already that usage doesn't speak much about viability) then considering that Mamoswine has the same viability as Rotom-W, I don't see any reason why Mamoswine shouldn't be accounted for, and on that note, Rotom-W is also another okay check that can switch into a decent portion of it's movepool, and threaten with Hydro Pump.

Second, I'm going to touch upon the part where you said "- and nothing else has Ice Shard, so you can't label Landorus as priority weak."
If you had read through my post, you would have noted on the fact that I listed Weavile, a faster Pokemon than Landorus-I, that hits hard with Ice Shard.
Weavile 4.25948 1272, according to ranked stats, and it's between Serperior and Amoongus. Furthermore, any Scarf Kyurem can OHKO with Ice Beam, but gets checked with Focus Blast. Also, Ice Shard will OHKO, making Rock Polish useless, if it was used to outspeed as it is a priority move. Also, Azumarill, especially AV Azumarill or CB, gets Aqua Jet, something that I had also mentioned in my previous post. Ice Shard does not necessarily restrict teambuilding. Dragonite, Garchomp and Landorus-T are some reasons why Ice Shard may be used.

Thirdly, the fact that Knock Off is such a large presence in the tier means that LO has a change of getting knocked off. Although this isn't reliable, this significantly nerfs Landorus-I and stops it from becoming too much of a presence. Also, several Pokemon in the tier have Trace (Gardevoir, Mega Alakazam, Porygon2), which would be able to abuse the fact that Landorus-I has Sheer Force and use it to their advantage, as all of these Pokemon have moves that have secondary affects.

This thing is hard to predict.
Once I used AV meloetta to check Lando and then I got bopped by Knock Off ^

More seriously:
101 speed is a given that you can't mess with
Landorus ability to remove easily their counters/checks with coverage move is really scary. Even on my Diancie based teams I had to put Hp Ice Mega Diancie just to not lose a Poke right back ( and that's if the opp does not Rock Polish turn 1)
Lando-I will enjoy having teamates such as Keldeo, Mega gardevoir, Mega Venusaur ( offensive) and even a trapper of you don't run Focus blast for spe def Ferrotorn.
It limitates badly the teambuilding and everytime you have to play these mindgames in 2 scenarios: First one to discover their moves and the second one to predict what move he's going to use.
Rotom-W can check only if it's spe def, which is bad atm, it is by far better in phy def, so I won't really count it as a check.

Are we using P2 and Umbreon again to check a mon that 2hko the metagame?
How centralizing is it to play these stuff.

Coming to Mamo point: while it is true that it can check Lando-I and dragons, most of them are lead rocks and will eventually be down in the first turns. So unless you decide for some reasons to play it LO Revenge killer, Mamo is not argument.

Ok Weavile can ohko, just switch, and then destroy again, i fail to see how Weavile can accomplish anything for a player who knows that Lando-I is the win condition ( and let's be honnest, it is 100% of the time)

Due to its ability to run multiple sets, provoking mind games and the fact you have to run obscure checks/counter I do believe that Landorus-I should be banned from Oras OU

With all due respect, firstly, I'm going to touch upon the part where you said "Mamoswine is so uncommon that it has dropped UU here on PO and it's not much more common otherwise".

If usage indeed doesn't matter (as many other have pointed out already that usage doesn't speak much about viability) then considering that Mamoswine has the same viability as Rotom-W, I don't see any reason why Mamoswine shouldn't be accounted for, and on that note, Rotom-W is also another okay check that can switch into a decent portion of it's movepool, and threaten with Hydro Pump.

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I don't know where you are getting the fact that Mamoswine has the same viability as Rotom-W (???) but that simply isn't true. Mamoswine is an uncommon pokemon on the ladder and in tournment play and its niche is less than it was in BW or other generations OU. Usage is not totally reliable, yes, but when something isn't used because it is lackluster in the tier, then that's a reflection upon it. It's like saying that Solrock can counter variants of Landorus lacking Knock Off and despite it not being used, it still is a counter, so I should note it, when that is totally ridiculous because Solrock isn't nearly viable in OU. Mamoswine is obviously much better than Solrock, but it still is uncommon and not even a counter to Landorus considering the fact that it can't switch into Landorus.

Second, I'm going to touch upon the part where you said "- and nothing else has Ice Shard, so you can't label Landorus as priority weak."
If you had read through my post, you would have noted on the fact that I listed Weavile, a faster Pokemon than Landorus-I, that hits hard with Ice Shard.
Weavile 4.25948 1272, according to ranked stats, and it's between Serperior and Amoongus. Furthermore, any Scarf Kyurem can OHKO with Ice Beam, but gets checked with Focus Blast. Also, Ice Shard will OHKO, making Rock Polish useless, if it was used to outspeed as it is a priority move. Also, Azumarill, especially AV Azumarill or CB, gets Aqua Jet, something that I had also mentioned in my previous post. Ice Shard does not necessarily restrict teambuilding. Dragonite, Garchomp and Landorus-T are some reasons why Ice Shard may be used.

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Weavile is a revenge killer of Landorus, like Mamoswine, but it cannot switch in and it is even less viable than Mamo, arguably, so I don't know why you are trying to say that having Ice Beam = Landorus isn't broken as that's ridiculous. That's like saying fire types can run scarf and outpace Genesect, Genesect must not be broken (or something along these lines - not the best comparison, but the point is that having 1 4x weakness and not being broken don't always go hand in hand, especially not in this instance when Landorus OHKOs every single ice type out there). Scarf Kyurem lol. Aqua Jet Azumarill isn't OHKOing and AV Azumarill in ORAS is awful; they're all CB or BDrum. Landorus isn't blatantly weak to priority and while some forms of prio do annoy it, that doesn't mean that it can be considered priority weak when it can shrug off most or at least survive them at a reasonable range.

Thirdly, the fact that Knock Off is such a large presence in the tier means that LO has a change of getting knocked off. Although this isn't reliable, this significantly nerfs Landorus-I and stops it from becoming too much of a presence. Also, several Pokemon in the tier have Trace (Gardevoir, Mega Alakazam, Porygon2), which would be able to abuse the fact that Landorus-I has Sheer Force and use it to their advantage, as all of these Pokemon have moves that have secondary affects.

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These arguments are both very situational and irrelevant to the state of the suspect as a whole and I don't know why you mentioned them (especially trace). Adding something for the sake of adding it without any substance or direct reasoning / relevance behind it is silly and makes a post worse quality than it is without them because it seems like you're going out of your way to make an argument that shouldn't be made as it's weaker than the pro-ban argument.

I also like how you blatantly disregard 90% of my post that basically tears through your whole initial argument about 4mss and other things, but I guess there is no counter-argument to this from the anti-ban side because Landorus is broken and there isn't much denying it at this point.

PS: No more posts like @meeps or @MUMU made as they can be "funny" but don't contribute to the discussion. I will let these be, but any more will be deleted and potentially infracted.

um since when can't uu mons check ou mons, just wondering tiers shouldn't stop a check being a check also @finch 4mss is a thing and u can scut aroudn it's move slots to a point, rather dangerous with this thing but still possible

@Finchinator I'm sorry if I'm missing something or just slow, but I don't get the point of what you were saying with the list of possible sets.

Landorus can run multiple sets. However, it's running a single set. I'm not arguing that it's not unpredicatble, but that unpredictability alone doesn't make or break a mon. Re-iterating my above post, many the sets share common checks and counters. Let's take 5 of the more common / relevant sets you listed.

Each one has its set of counters and checks, and many of them are shared between. I'm not saying that have a single one of these mons will save you from Landorus - that's only true for Cresselia I think - but having at least 1 of these can make your team well-prepared for Landorus. I'm sure I've forgotten some of the possible pivots or checks as well.

I don't disagree that 101 is above average, but leaves much to be desired as a sweeper. It puts it in the speed tier to be revenged by scarf anything. Many teams run at least one of Latios, Keldeo, Lopunnite, Thundurus, or Garchomp, all of which outspeed, and of those, only Garchomp needs prior damage to kill. It isn't particularly weak to priority, but not resilient either - I'll get to that later.

The high satk is a given, that's why we're having this discussion. EP 2hkos most of the tier. However, Flying types and Levitators are abundant, so Landorus can't afford to always spam it. The Landorus user has to predict as much as the opponent to play around pivots.

Ground/Flying is probably one of the better typings in the meta. Its two weaknesses are usually seen on the same types of mon. It certainly isn't frail as it survives some important neutral hits like CB Talonflame without SR. However, all of the checks, counters, and pivots listed above account for that.

I don't think it's bad by any means, but each of its sets do have counters which are valid and viable. There is also a huge pool of checks and pivots that work against it which are common on any team - not just to check Landorus, but because they are good in many respects.

So, sorry if I'm missing the point completely, but I wanted to at least point out that unpredictability goes both ways. If you convince me that I can't prepare for Landorus without running its "real counters" then I'll support ban. In practice, using checks and pivots to control it has worked for me - the same way it works for any balanced team working around other top threats. It's not a perfect information game. Mindgames are integral to gameplay.

(P.S. I think @Fiery Espeon's point was that, discounting things like Mamoswine because of low usage = discounting things like Rock Slide on Landorus because of low usage. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

@Finchinator I'm sorry if I'm missing something or just slow, but I don't get the point of what you were saying with the list of possible sets.

Landorus can run multiple sets. However, it's running a single set. I'm not arguing that it's not unpredicatble, but that unpredictability alone doesn't make or break a mon. Re-iterating my above post, many the sets share common checks and counters. Let's take 5 of the more common / relevant sets you listed.

Each one has its set of counters and checks, and many of them are shared between. I'm not saying that have a single one of these mons will save you from Landorus - that's only true for Cresselia I think - but having at least 1 of these can make your team well-prepared for Landorus. I'm sure I've forgotten some of the possible pivots or checks as well.

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My point (which I stated clearly before and will reiterate now) is that Landorus hand picks its own counters because of its movepool, unpredictability, strength, and speed. This is so unhealthy because it can conveniently and viably run so many moves while possessing the aforementioned traits and there being only 1 universal counter means that teambuilding will require you to run multiple checks or that lone counter (and nobody is using Cress so..) to deal with Landorus sufficiently. I don't have time to write another wall of text right now, but if this point still isn't sticking with people then I'll gladly write another later tonight or tomorrow to go more in depth on this matter.

updated, idk why rotom-w was on a- for so long when it is easily one of the best defensive pivots in the tier and one of the best glues on bulky offense and even balance teams. rotom-w and mamoswine play completely different roles, how dare you compare the two of them when the only thing they share in common is that they were on the same subrank on the ou viability rankings (well not anymore :D). compare something which also has stab ice shard like weavile or something, why compare it with rotom-w is beyond my understanding. a pokemon is placed in a specific subrank because of its influence and role it plays in the metagame. if something like msableye which provides enough support to create an entire playstyle by its own and requiring little support from its teammates while still being able to completely invalidate defensive threats such as sr hippo and sr ferrothorn, it's given the s rank. thats how the ou viability rankings work, please do not use it in your argument in future and watch the sass in your simple one liner post linking to the ou viability rankings, expecting finch to decipher what your point was.

which brings me to my next point

4mss. it's a term which is always thrown around in suspect discussions. i feel that 4mss is a double-edged sword that can be used by both pro-ban and anti-ban posters. for pro-ban, 4mss means that the suspect is so flexible to the point where it can run multiple coverage moves to eliminate its own checks. it hence is more difficult for the opponent to play around the suspect because of its "unpredictability" (i will write later why i used "") and have to guess its moveslots, and the only way the opponent will ever be able to find out all 4 moveslots is to pivot with pokemon until all 4 moveslots are revealed. this puts the suspect pokemon in control of the psychological game and can abuse it to stay ahead of the opponent. on the anti-ban side, 4mss means that the pokemon cannot fit 4 moves, simply put, it is difficult to clean an entire team because it will always be lacking in a move and can throw in the check once all 4 moves have been revealed (to make it clearer if landorus lacks knock off, the opponent can safely throw in latias to check it effectively) 4mss honestly should not be discussed in suspect discussions because it supports both the pro-ban and anti-ban, and if both sides post why a pokemon should/shouldn't be banned and their main reasoning is 4mss, it creates a circle-jerk and achieves completely nothing.

i also feel that listing checks and counters should stop. so what if a pokemon has few checks and counters, it doesn't make a pokemon any more broken. it simply means it is harder to play around with but there will always be multiple high usage pokemon and pivots which effectively stop such a pokemon from becoming "overpowered" or "broken". likewise, even if a pokemon has lots of checks and counters, it doesn't make a pokemon any less broken. it simply means it is easier to play around it but its influence in the metagame might be toxic and completely invalidates the usage of certain pokemon which results in an unhealthy presence in the metagame. everyone knows what a check and what a counter is. everyone who has played the tier knows what checks what, is there really a need to list all checks and counters as your main body of your post? no offense to any poster but i feel that listing a shitton of checks and counters in a suspect discussion is useless and is simply extending your post to make it look more "intimidating". ive got nothing against any posters but this is a trend which i realised has been increasing and even i myself has been doing this as of late to solidify my point but i realised it kinda just makes it a huge wall of text that nobody likes to read. especially if it has flashy colours which makes your eyes hurt.

if we should not talk about 4mss or checks&counters, what should we talk about then. we should talk about the influence the suspect has on the metagame.

does the suspect have a healthy or unhealthy influence on the tier

if so, what makes it healthy/unhealthy (base stats/movepool/ability/combination of all 3 etc)

post trends which you have observed on the ladder instead of just saying "i think the pokemon should not be banned because my team handles it very well and i have never been swept by it before" (sounds ridiculous but i guarantee if you look at every suspect thread this year you will definitely find a post that my sentence summarises completely)

im sure you guys can think of more points than this, knowing the amount of knowledge and experience you spilled into this thread, it makes every post better to read. perhaps your post might even convince anti-ban posters to ban the suspect and vice versa!

about a pokemon being "unpredictable": i feel that its a wrong choice of word to use for 4mss. the correct word which should be used is flexible because the suspect can throw in moves to play around and beat its own checks. the correct usage of the word "unpredictable" is when a pokemon has multiple sets which it can use equally well. each set has its own specific counter, but there was no universal counter for all sets, making it extremely difficult to play around. past suspects which had this attribute are mega lucario (sd/np/agility all sets were amazing) and aegislash(fast sd/mixed/4 attacks/subtoxic god alone knows how many more) and they could abuse this attribute so well to the point where they dominated (and in aegislash's case overcentralised) the metagame to a huge extent to the point where the metagame had to adapt and bend their back backwards just to keep up with the suspect.

sry guys for being a hypocrite and writing a wall of text but i think this needs to be said eventually

Well, I have been seeing a lot of lines along the lines of "4MSS doesn't make Landorus-I more-check-able", well, I would like to point out that multiple mixed attackers, or even some special attackers with 6/7 viable moves can be considered to have "no or very few switch-in" if we view them that way, walling/checking it in practice is a lot easier than it is in theory that excludes 4mss, of course cresselia can't fit everywhere, so it's understandable that hard countering it isn't going to be very common, but checks do exist and while it's true that it can be devastating against unprepared balanced if it has the right moves, it's by no means "too strong for the tier". No Ban.

Edit: @Post#36
"but not all of them can use so many different combinations without losing much"

Well, depends, Latis indeed suffer this problem at times, I guess,(Manaphy might too?) but not many of them.

"and not all of these pokemon have the speed and power that Landorus has"
"and at times, you don't even have a check to a specific variant,"

Well I mean, that's the thing, I can't see it being too common but when it does happen it will most likely happen to slower balanced anyway, so the speed factor doesn't effect too much, it does, but not too much,and as long as they classify for "and at times, you don't even have a check to a specific variant," due to a specific set of coverage etc even other pokemon are more than capable of creating that situation, mainly if they carry a slightly unusual/unexpected move, but sometimes, without one too, it doesn't neccecerily mean Landorus-I is broken because of that, also,as Landorus-I tends to tailor it's set to fit it's team, it's not as unpredictable as it might seem.

Woo Lando-I. One of those mons I am stoutly indifferent on. No one in this thread has convinced me either way, but I'll just post my thoughts here. From my experience on the ladder, it seems like very few teams prepare for Lando-I in any way, and those that did, about half of them played their checks/counters in a relatively decent manner. The current state of the metagame definitely helps out Lando in terms of how good it is.

I don't think Lando-I should ever run U-Turn unless it's an Earth Plate (or scarf) because that extra 10% for momentum isn't worth it. Earth Plate sets I feel are significantly less effective than the LO sets considering Scarf Lando-I is so bad this gen. So no, I don't think U-Turn should be considered much at all. Being able to hand pick checks/counters is defining of the game of Pokemon rather than Lando-I's brokenness. Having the ability to select 4 moves, and 510 total EVs with EVERY Pokemon, you are making a conscious decision on what you can and can't handle. The other 5 members on the team are there to support the things that you can't handle. When teambuilding, you also make a more or less conscious decision on what you can handle well, and what you can't.

Now speaking of support, this is something Lando-I needs.

You can run things like Bisharp/Scizor/Weavile/Tyranitar to trap Gar/Lati's/Mew and bait in Sylveon if you carry Sludge Wave. The infamous Lando/Ttar/Excadrill core still works pretty well in ORAS as Lando handles most of Drill's checks and Drill can handle most of Lando's Checks. Late game is a complete nightmare against that core.

Nasty Pass Celebi is, in my opinion, the best teammate for Lando-I. It switches into Keldeo, (Mega) Slowbro, Slowking, Azumarill, Rotom-W, and a pretty large number of defensive mons and can either Nasty Plot or Baton Pass to Lando-I. The great thing about this partnership is that Celebi covers a lot on Mons Lando doesn't want to risk being in on, and can give it a free switch or a boost. The great thing about the free switch is that most things that want to switch into Celebi just get beat by Landorus (think Heatran, Zard X, Zard Y if it has Rock Slide, Ttar, Bisharp, and the list goes on). Passing Nasty Plot also gives Lando the wallbreaking power CM gives and frees up a potential move slot. One of my favorite combinations is Nasty Pass Celebi + RP (Earth Power, Focus Blast, Rock Slide) Lando. Combine that with a Pursuit trapper and you have a pretty solid core.

Mega Diancie forms a solid core with Lando-I as well, especially in combination with Nasty Pass Celebi. Mega Dianice checks Talonflame and Bisharp's Sucker Punch and beats both Zard's, can help break walls for Lando with CM, or sweep and Lando breaks walls with the RP set.

Defensive Chomp punishes physical attackers, namely Talonflame, Bisharp, and Azumarill, and gets up Rocks to help Lando-I score some critical KOs. Mons that force Keldeo to Secret Sword, any Scarfed mon to EQ, and the Lati's to Draco are also great teammates for set up variants.

Rotom-W checks Talonflame and Azumarill and has a relatively slow Volt Switch than can give Landorus switch ins. Lando also really likes being in on most of the mons you would ordinarily switch into Rotom-W.

Icy Wind Gengar is also a solid options as it beats all other Landorus, can deal with Sylveon well, and beats bulky Psychics. Lando becomes less inclined to run Sludge Wave because of this freeing a move slot for a different move.

If you don't want to read above, although I HIGHLY encourage you to at least look at the support part of my post, alone I don't think Landorus-I is broken, but it is relatively easy to support and that might be something to push it over the edge. Just a little food for thought because no one has brought up the supporting Pokemon aspect in this suspect discussion. IIRC it was something that helped push it over in the BW(2?) suspect discussion.

There is no denying that Lando-I is a really solid Pokemon that can run a lot of options. CB/4 Attacks/RP are all really good sets that do not share a common counter. All sets are beatable, but scouting which set Lando-I is running can be quite painful (although this goes for any offensive mon with a bit better movepool than Serperior).

Imo, the reason that Lando-I is so good right now is that people are not prepared for it. Lando-T was one of the most influental/used mon in the metagame for quite a long time and people somehow forgot that Lando-I also existed. As the Lando-T train is slowly dying, people start using Lando-I more. However, the metagame always laggs behind on trends, so it is natural that Lando-I is doing such a good job right now, as it is a destructive Pokemon if left uncountered/unchecked.

That being said, once the metagame starts evolving, there will be numerous ways to check/counter Lando-I. If it lacks RP, it is easily revenge killed by anything faster than 101 base speed, which includes a lot of viable Pokemon (many more than in BW2). If it runs RP, it only has room for 3 attacking moves, of which 1 will be Earth Power. Granted, this still leaves 60 possible combinations (assuming it picks 2 from Knock Off, Focus Blast, Sludge Wave, Psychic and HP Ice), but not all of these are viable. Yes, it can pick its own checks and counters, but that goes for nearly every offensive Pokemon.

For the moment, I'm leaning towards anti-ban. However, I'm more in favour of not taking any actions for now, let the metagame adept and then decide what to do.

The discussion is about Landorus-Incarnate's brokenness (or lack thereof) in the Omega Ruby Alpha Sapphire Overused tier. There are various facets of Landorus-I to hone in on, but trivial matters that aren't noteworthy in OU, nor to this discussion, shouldn't be discussed as it's a waste of time bringing them up. With that being said, it can be argued that there are some "situational" matters that do have importance.

Well, I have been seeing a lot of lines along the lines of "4MSS doesn't make Landorus-I more-check-able", well, I would like to point out that multiple mixed attackers, or even some special attackers with 6/7 viable moves can be considered to have "no or very few switch-in" if we view them that way, walling/checking it in practice is a lot easier than it is in theory that excludes 4mss, of course cresselia can't fit everywhere, so it's understandable that hard countering it isn't going to be very common, but checks do exist and while it's true that it can be devastating against unprepared balanced if it has the right moves, it's by no means "too strong for the tier". No Ban.

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Yea it's true that a lot of pokemon have a plethora of viable moves (tyranitar, thundurus, latias/os, manaphy, kyu-b, aero, hydreigon, torn-t, etc.), but not all of them can use so many different combinations without losing much and not all of these pokemon have the speed and power that Landorus has, thus making this a lackluster comparison.

Also, "of course cresslia can't fit everywhere" - it can hardly fit anywhere besides full stall teams which shouldn't even be used much, if at all, in this meta. Yes, "checks do exist" but if you don't know what your check is due to its versatility and you send in the wrong thing, then bad things happen and at times, you don't even have a check to a specific variant, so given these circumstances, Landorus is a bit too good for OU atm imo.

Really, I don't know why so many people want this thing banned. While, yes, it counter list isn't very long because of it being able to run different moves to cover its counters, it doesn't change how many checks it has. Despite what moves it runs, it's checks will still always beat it as long as it get have a rock polish boost (and if they have rock polish, they only have 3 attacking slots, which make them much easier to counter in general). I think people are starting to mix up really good pokemon and broken pokemon. I also see in this post of people thinking it's broken because if they predict you, you lose. This is a weird ass argument to ban something. If Landy-i Knocked Off your Latios on the switch and killed you, that doesn't make Landorus-i broken. It means you made an extremely standard dot play and got punished for doing so.
Do I admit that Landorus-i is an amazing pokemon and can punish playstyles that generally have a lot of mons slower than it? Yes. Is it broken? No. It just has too many checks in my eyes to be considered broken, and I'm not even talking pokemon like Mamoswine. There's just so many mons out there that check it by just naturally outspeeding it, and this isn't even counting the mons that check it with a choice scarf or when the Landy-i is Modest (however Modest may be slightly less common now).
Anyways, that's just my 2 cents on the matter that will be probably overlooked because this site only takes the votes of people who agree that the suspected mon is broken, but nonetheless, I think Landorus-i is not broken and should not be banned.

I also see in this post of people thinking it's broken because if they predict you, you lose. This is a weird ass argument to ban something. If Landy-i Knocked Off your Latios on the switch and killed you, that doesn't make Landorus-i broken. It means you made an extremely standard dot play and got punished for doing so.
Do I admit that Landorus-i is an amazing pokemon and can punish playstyles that generally have a lot of mons slower than it? Yes. Is it broken? No. It just has too many checks in my eyes to be considered broken, and I'm not even talking pokemon like Mamoswine. There's just so many mons out there that check it by just naturally outspeeding it, and this isn't even counting the mons that check it with a choice scarf or when the Landy-i is Modest (however Modest may be slightly less common now).

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What exactly are the right plays when being forced out by lando's 1000 dumb strong coverage moves? You say going to latios is a "dot" play but what would you have people switch in? Something that potentially gets outspeed after a rock polish? How bout a mega venu eating psychics? Or maybe your rotom which gets 2hkoed by focus blast or psychic?

Lando-I is the most versatile offensive mon in the ou meta and threatens all playstyles with the appropriate move and requires little support while busting holes (to put it lightly) for its mates, therefore should be banned from the oras ou tier. This is due to a general slowing of the speed of the metagame over the last month or so which makes Landorus far too effective at its role when considering all the options at its disposal.

Anyways, that's just my 2 cents on the matter that will be probably overlooked because this site only takes the votes of people who agree that the suspected mon is broken, but nonetheless, I think Landorus-i is not broken and should not be banned.

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If it was overlooked nobody would have taken to the time to quote and respond to you. This is not a vote, keyword "discussion"

Finch precursor edit: I deleted [OG]Swanna's initial post with the quote at the start of this, so just clarifying that so it doesn't look like he is quoting nothing in this thread. Keeping this quality response up because it brings up some valid general points. This is all.

Honestly I cannot name a suspect in the last few months that wasn't banned

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well seeing how this post contributes 0 to the suspect as well lemme just say something. Firstly we just had 2 non-bans in LU but whatever that's beside my point.

If you're gonna continue playing Gen 6 you should probably get out of this Gen 4 mindset of tiering. And I say that not just to you but to every other person who is acting like this. Gen 6 not only introduced 100+ new pokemon with formes and megas but also retconned a large amount of pokemon to be competitively viable. We have kept the same amount of tiers as last gen despite the amount of threats drastically rising gen to gen. More bans are inevitable because every single tier is flooded with even more powerful stuff than ever, I don't know if you remember this but B2W2 was an enormous power creep that was already putting a strain on our tiers, XY added a lot more stuff to consider and then ORAS was a power creep again. Unless you'd like to drastically up our playerbase singlehandedly so we can afford to expand the number of tiers I really would suggest not being in a Gen 4 "we can only ban the most extreme stuff" mindset when we're 6-7 years and 8 mainline pokemon games away from the end of that generation. Funnily enough things happened to pokemon in those 8 games.

tl;dr THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MORE BROKEN POKEMON WHEN THE TIERS ARE THE SAME AFTER A HUGE POWER CREEP, IT'S THE GAME WE'RE PLAYING

Finch precursor edit: Just noting that I deleted [OG]Swanna's initial post with this quote, so Pnerd is actually quoting something that was physically in this thread, but it was a lackluster post, so I elected to delete it, but Pnerd makes a quality response, so that shall be kept up. This is all.

Banning extreme stuff is pretty much the concept of a suspect......................

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The concept of a suspect test is basically to have a more in depth discussion on a pokemon that a lot of people(or a vocal minority) think could be broken, not to ban only the insanely god-tier reality warping-ly strong Ubers that have happened into OU. That's kind of the point of the potential suspect threads; people can vaguely complain about a pokemon or two there and if a consensus seems to be reached about a pokemon being broken, then boom a suspect goes up for more detailed discussion. It's like magic, really. And honestly banning "only the most extreme things" is going back to GSC logic. In gen 4 everyone was pretty liberal in their thinking about banning things in comparison to the old days. Times change, more things need to be banned in order not to have completely match-up dependent metagames.

We should probably get back to actually talking about Landorus though, this kind of discussion/complaint would be better suited in its own thread or the potential suspects discussion.